Just over two years ago my mother died. That is still a strange sentence to write, even though clearly I am of an age at which I see the adults of my youth one by one fading away into memory.

But the death of a parent is not an easy event to process. Setting aside the tap on the shoulder from the Grim Reaper which says, “Your turn next, mateyplops,” you lose everything from love right down to the knowledge of things that happened to you as a child, before your memories were formed.

It is, in short, rubbish.

The reason it has cropped up at this stage is that this week we finally got round to interring my mother's ashes.

Now, while there are fine environmental and logistical reasons for cremation – and it was definitely the right choice – it does leave you with certain problems down the line, chiefly, “What are we supposed to do with the remains of our dear mother?”

Her death was sudden, and she was relatively young, so the family had never ascertained what we should do with her ashes. She did not ask for them to be scattered anywhere, not even on the carpets of her enemies, which, I suspect, she would consider an opportunity lost.

So we decided to bury the ashes in the cemetery where her own parents were interred, not far from where she was brought up. It seemed appropriate, and we arranged a headstone, which meant there would be a delay between the cremation and the interment, because they can't just put a headstone through a laser printer, apparently.

But owing to one thing and another – life, mostly – the delay between funeral and interment stretched and stretched until it was decided it would happen around the second anniversary of the funeral.

And so, on an unexpectedly sunny Monday, family and friends gathered in the cemetery for what was effectively a second funeral.

I do not think I was prepared for the double gutpunch, even two years on, of seeing my own mother's headstone, nor the casket containing her ashes sitting beside it.

Suddenly I felt the weight of bereavement fresh again. I was woozy, and laid my hand on the headstone to right myself. And so I was not really in my right mind when the gravedigger – I suppose he has a more technical title – asked if my brother or I would be placing the casket in the hole he had dug.

I said I would do it, as the last thing I could do for my mum. I did not think it through, and so I sealed my fate.

The service around the headstone started, and proceeded sombrely. And then, at the appropriate moment, the priest asked me to put the casket into the plot. I took the casket in my hands and at that moment realised that I had made one of my poor decisions.

It has been raining quite a lot recently. You might have noticed. And although there was gravel around the plot, it was wet and muddy. I knelt down next to the grave and could feel the water soaking into my trousers.

I leant forward. Now, the thing about wooden caskets is that they are quite thick. You cannot hold them in one hand, you have to use both. Also, it is considered fairly disrespectful just to drop them in the grave. Combine these realities with the fact that the hole dug was about three feet deep.

You should now have a picture of a 6ft tall man kneeling and holding something heavy in two hands, which he has to place gently in a 3ft deep hole. If you can think of a dignified way this can be done, please write to me.

I bent, knowing that I faced my doom, and somehow twisted so that my head rested against the headstone, and, with a face full of flowers, I stretched my arms long enough so that I could gently place the casket in the ground. Then I struggled to my feet.

My trousers and boots were caked in dirt from the gravel, and I had mud up one sleeve. I had sacrificed my own dignity for my mother's, and walked home afterwards looking as if I had done an army assault course in my suit and tie.

I think my mum would have been horrified, but amused, as she was by most of my poor decisions.